Sleep Apnea: Reason and Diagnostic Devices overview

A healthy sleep is very important aspect of maintaining one’s physical and mental health. Sleep deprivation may lead to various serious health problems such as heart diseases, high blood pressure, chronic depression, mental and physical fatigue, memory loss, etc. There can be many reasons for sleep deprivation, one of which is sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea means obstructive sleep due to blockage of airway in the throat. When one breathes, air travels down the throat through the wind pipe and into the lungs. The narrowest part of that pathway is in the back of the throat. While awake, those muscles are relatively wide keeping the opening wide. After one falls asleep those muscles relax. It narrows the opening and the air passing through may cause the throat to vibrate which leads to snoring. Sometimes the throat closes more than normally it should and that blocks the air passing through the airway to the lungs. When the muscles relax, the airway narrows or closes as one breathe in causing an adequate breath in. This may lower the level of blood oxygen. This action alerts the brain and it activates the muscles controlling the airway and again lets the air pass through the airway. This whole process can take place within a matter of just few seconds without waking up the person and can happen hundreds of times during the night.

Sleep apnea may lead to micro-sleep which means brief moments of sleep during the times when one is normally awake. The primary cause of sleep apnea is that one’s brain fails to transmit the neuro-signals to the muscles controlling the breathing action. Sleep apnea can result in daytime fatigue, metabolic syndrome, liver problems, complications with medication and surgery, etc. Number of sleep apnea patients is rising everyday due to the erratic work schedules, irregular sleep cycles and unhealthy dietary habits. As a result of this, there has been a rise in number of clinics that offer diagnostics and treatment facility to patients.

Devices such as Electroencephalogram (EEG), Electromyogram (EMG), Electro-Oculogram (EOG) and Electrocardiogram (ECG) are used for the diagnosis of sleep apnea. The rise in sleep apnea cases is driving the growth of Sleep Apnea Diagnostic Devices industry all over the world and is expected to continue growing with a CAGR of 7.2% in future.